Stumbling Block for school plan

A plan by St Andrew's Cathedral School to set up a campus for indigenous children in Redfern has exposed divisions in the community, writes Joel Gibson in the Sydney Morning Herald of April 6, 2007.

It is lunchtime on a Wednesday and Ethan, 5, and Toovanahoo,
10, are at home in Woolloomooloo, eating hot chips. Schoolbooks are scattered
throughout their cosy public housing living room. Jesus hangs crucified on one
wall, cradled by the Madonna on another. Are they looking forward to starting
at their new school?

For now, the brothers are being schooled at home, as their
three older brothers were when they grew up on the Block, in Redfern's black
ghetto.

They were supposed to start this term with five other
children at Gawura, a small school tailor-made for indigenous students by the
St Andrew's Cathedral
School. But after 12
months, 12 site inspections and a political stoush with some of Redfern's most
vocal community groups, who variously saw it as divisive, missionary and
exclusive, Gawura remains a school without a campus.

The headmaster of St Andrew's, Phillip Heath, had the notion
of an Anglican World Vision-style school in the Redfern-Waterloo area, where 20
to 30 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and two or three teachers
are sponsored by donors.

The need is acute. By the time indigenous children in NSW
reach year 7, their benchmark numeracy rates are 30 per cent below the state
average, according to the National Report on Schooling in Australia 2005. Reading and writing rates
are 17 and 19 per cent lower, respectively.

So Heath put together a taskforce of community members
including Ray Minniecon, pastor of Crossroads Aboriginal Ministries, and Ethan
and Toovanahoo's mother, Faith Landy-Ariel. She says other attempts have failed
to solve the "truancy rates and behavioural problems" of indigenous
children, but she believes this method will work. "They're going to 'own
the school'. They love being with their own people. Knowing that they are going
to go to school with kids from their own community is great," she says.

But Gawura has inadvertently become a political football in
Redfern, where some see it as a blessing and others as a curse.

In January, St Andrew's met vocal opposition when it
proposed to open the small school at the Redfern Community Centre on the Block.
Nine out of 13 submissions to the City of Sydney
Council objected to the development application.

One was from the Aboriginal Housing Company chief executive,
Mick Mundine, who says having the school next to the Block would segregate
indigenous children from the main school, when students at St Andrew's could
learn from having them at the main campus. It is akin to setting up
"another black school", he says.

The Redfern Residents for Reconciliation group also
objected, saying it was inappropriate for a church school to occupy space in a
public community centre, and that Gawura's small size and selection criteria
would make it exclusive and divisive. They urged St Andrew's to give
scholarships to the school's main campus in the city instead.

Geoff Turnbull, the convener of the community group
Redwatch, says many Redfern families also had negative memories of their
experience on religious missions. "There's a lot of anti-private school
feeling … It opens up a whole pile of baggage."

Heath says the taskforce had been naive. "There's an
ecumenical question as well as an assumption that we're do-gooders and new kids
on the block and why are we any better than the people who've been working here
for years?"

But the taskforce is content to be tested and determined to
pass, he says. "We're pretty committed to this and it's fair that we
should be brushed aside by some sectors to see if we're serious. We are
serious."

Landry-Ariel says: "It wasn't the community, it was the
activists … the same old people who come to every meeting and say the same old
thing because they don't want to watch TV that night." Some are not
Aboriginal, while others had judged the plan without knowing the details, she
says.

Cathy Miskovich, Gawura's foundation principal and a former
teacher in Moree and Walgett, says taskforce members have spoken to some of the
critics since.

"People who aren't going to be involved with the
school, I'll listen to them and get opposing views. But as far as I'm
concerned, it's the parents who've said they want in that I'm most interested
in listening to."

To formulate the St Andrew's model, Miskovich has
doorknocked in the Redfern area, looked at private schools that offer
indigenous scholarships and Aboriginal schools in Kempsey, in Victoria
and in South Australia,
and spoken to parents. Noel Pearson, the Cape York
indigenous leader, has expressed his support and lent his advice.

Now, with "seed funding" from a handful of former
St Andrew's parents and with seven children ready to begin, the school will
execute plan B. If all goes to plan, on April 23 the children will begin
lessons in a "school-within-a-school" at the Town Hall Square campus of St Andrew's.

On the ninth floor of St Andrew's House, work has begun to
accommodate the children from the Block and its surrounds in a purpose-built
classroom.

For half of each school day they will study intensive
literacy and numeracy, an Aboriginal language and "social sciences from an
indigenous perspective". For the other half, they will be integrated with
the school's mainstream sport, music and religious activities. They will wear
the St Andrew's uniform - Heath says the parents wanted it that way - but pay
fees of $250 a term, compared with the $10,000-plus a year paid by full-fee students.

"We were faced with the decision of whether to keep
going or hold back and we've decided that we will keep going," Heath says.
In the meantime, St Andrew's continues to look for a middle ground with
Redfern's community groups.

Landy-Ariel's mother, Gloria Mackintosh Bon, was born on Murray Island
in Torres Strait. She says Gawura will
eventually bring the splintered indigenous people of Sydney closer together.

"There were eight tribes on Murray Island,
all in their different parts of the island," Bon says. "When the
missionaries first got there, they brought everyone to the front of the island
so people could go to church and school together. That's what we're talking
about."